Canines and Crescent Moons
by AutumnAmpersand
Summary: An unlikely encounter leads to an unheard of alliance resulting in passion, danger, and an enticing new world for Jacob Black.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: PETA hates turtles

The smell rustled through the familiar trees and dirt and coated them in something foreign. Something both unknown and unwelcome danced along the scent. I resisted an unnatural urge to roll around in the scent and mark myself with it, but the feeling made me wince and feel more like a backyard hound dog than I liked. It was something that smelled so close to "right" but just missed the mark. And it was something I, who knew a hell of a lot about "weird shit," couldn't begin to place.

I was frustrated and tired and I'd been tracking all day long and still nothing. Things like turtles and armadillos began to look a whole lot like volleyballs and soccer balls to a wolf with an inadequacy complex. Don't judge me, armadillos are like those people that talk about really boring or offensive things in overly loud voices that you've always wanted to punch in the face but have never had the courage too. And turtles are idiots, not even PETA cares about turtles, so being my Hackensack was an upgrade in life.

I tried to drown out the anxious voices of my pack members in the back of my head and kept heading towards the mountains. Questions we'd already asked hundreds of times over sang out in redundant lyrics with melodies mimicking Lambchop repetition. "_What is it," Why is it here," What does it want," "Where is it going?"_ And if Paul asked me one more Goddamn time if I'd found it yet, I was gonna go samurai warrior on his unattractively hairy self.  
As long as I kept going, the more irritated I could be at petty things like the grating sound of Leah's voice, or my inability to track down this new development, were fan-damn-tastic if they kept me distracted. As long as they succeeded in at least some small way to keep my mind off of Bella, and the fact that she loved a blood-sucker more than she'd ever love me. I tried to pretend that the further I got away from Cullen land, the more the ache eased. That maybe as long as I kept a county, country or continent between us I could forget her. _Yep, sure, that'll happen_.

How exactly do you tell your own brain to shut the hell up? Even more difficult to tell yourself to shut up when you have a handful of muscle-bound pack members to hear you and volunteer to do the honor. I tried to focus back on my task at hand. Something or someone was tap dancing too close for comfort on the boundaries of our land. The fact that nobody in the pack could identify what it was was disconcerting and alarming at the least.  
I had never smelt anything like it before, it almost smelt like pack, but it wasn't like what we had was a particularly common affliction. Could it be a neighboring pack? Maybe there were more of us out there than I had thought about? Maybe I'd get the fight I was just itching to have for so long with some over arrogant dumbass wolf who needed to get put in his place? I felt myself grin and my muzzle lifted back to expose sharp canines in a very not nice form of amusement. Bring it on boy-o. Bring it on.

The thought was so delicious it took me a moment to realize two important things had changed. The first thing being the scent of the creature had changed from something I could roll around on my tongue to an almost imperceptible hint of flavor abruptly without warning. The second being that the moon had swallowed the sun and the stars were yawning themselves awake. The moon was one small slice from full and shone down with a brilliance that would have helped even a human to discern the path.  
I stopped and sat down in the middle of the deer trail I had been following. How does a scent just…disappear? I took in a breath and only detected the earthy scents of soil and water someplace in the distance and-

"Jesus Jacob what an idiot you are." I turned and walked towards the East mentally adding "talking to myself" onto my list of issues. Of course, if the creature had gone into water I would have trouble picking up their scent. Maybe it knows something is tracking it and wants to throw it off the trail? With a grin I contemplated the fight to come. This was Quileute land and we had enough on our hands without rogue trespassing furbags.  
I could smell the lake quite clearly miles before I was close by, and the unnatural silence of the clearing screamed more loudly than words that there was a visitor. Carefully remaining downwind I phased back into human form to rest a bit, not quite sure what to expect or what I would be up against. The vegetation and trees surrounding the water were thick and melted into each other to form a wall of foliage I had to circumnavigate with some ninja-like stealth.

I broke through the foliage at the same moment something broke the surface of the water and I noticed a few things simultaneously. One: It was quite obviously a "she", and two: that she was utterly and completely naked at the moment. Both the wolf and man in me were mixed parts shock and whole hearted approval, but then who was I to judge…I was naked too.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Pinecones and petulance

I resisted the childish and rather ironic urge to wolf whistle at the woman coming out of the lake. Who the hell swims nude in lakes in Washington?! Much more importantly, who the hell looks like _that_ in Forks? I still stood a good 20 yards away when she stiffened and whirled around to face me with a very inhuman, not to mention unladylike, snarl.

Her Auburn hair still had a curl at the ends even wet and plastered to her skin; it hit mid-back and framed some rather frighteningly attractive curves. Her eyes were an odd mixture stuck between green and gold and they were disturbing in her innocent face with the plump lips and the freckles on her nose because they were not human eyes. I lectured my body not to pay attention but it wasn't particularly listening to me, bad timing on my part.

It was the most hilarious and unsettling standoff of my life. I saw her lift her chin at a rather haughty level and stare me down even as the blush raced from her face to her chest, so I cocked an eyebrow and watched the descent of the flush on her lightly tanned body. I took a step forward and she shifted an inch backwards and glared.

" Stay where you are, don't come any closer to me." Her voice rang out soft and husky. No vampire vocals for this chick. I put my hands on my hips and grinned widely.

" Just an evening to enjoy the scenery then eh?" Hey eyes darted down my torso and I resisted the mad urge to do a little hip swivel as she blushed further. She dashed behind a tree a couple feet to her left and rustled around into what I imagined would be clothing. I looked around without any particular hope that I would find something to clothe myself as well. Unsurprisingly I saw nothing of any use. She still stood behind the tree even though the rustling had stopped.

"Can you cover yourself for Christ's sake?" her voice was a mixture of embarrassment and exasperation and I walked a few more steps closer.

"What exactly do you have in mind; conversation wasn't the activity I had in mind when I set out." I heard her grumble something that sounded suspiciously like "I just bet." She tossed something at me that was an alarming shade of pink and I stared at in horror as in fluttered to the ground. She made a waffling motion with her hand and told me to use something of hers for now.

" Not a chance in hell." My tone was petulant and disgusted but I had every right to be. The pink thing was a skirt. _A skirt_! I wearily studied the fabric and narrowed my eyes. Was that a ruffle?

" Just put the damn thing on would you? I feel a little stupid having a conversation behind pinecones."

"Well that's understandable seeing as you look a little stupid having a conversation behind pinecones too. Why do I have to play drag to protect a trespassing stranger's delicate sensibilities?" I looked at the skirt and allowed myself to get angry.

" ya know, I was supposed to get to beat the daylights out of you, not re-enact your San Francisco Tootsie pop fantasies. I didn't even get to break any bones." My tone was accusatory and her responding sarcasm wasn't lost on me.

"Oh dear, what a gentleman you are, however will I repay you." I stalked into the cold lake and hissed as the water lapped at my over warm body temperature. This tiny naked woman was starting to piss me off. Girls weren't supposed to use that tone on me. That was _MY_ tone. Sarcasm was my damn signature. Feeling stupid I glared in the vicinity of her pinecones.

"You can come out now sweetheart." She sauntered out with a lot more bravado in her step now that she was covered up. I stared in an unimpressed manner at her overly large green sweater and loose cargo pants, a snazzy dresser she was not.

"I liked you better the other way." I couldn't help the smirk.

"That's a very sad story you have there." I like to think her responding smirk wasn't quite as mocking as mine.

"Aren't you going to tell me you liked me better out of the water?"

"I hear Dishonesty is a sin."

"And Denial is a river in Egypt. Now that we've touched on religion and education do you mind telling me why the hell you're on our land, and what the hell you are?"

Her eyes focused on mine for a moment of uncomfortable silence and she seemed to be debating something.

"You're not human." The tone of her voice was not a question

" Nope."

" Why do you smell so weird?"

I blinked and crossed my arms over my chest " Well that's not the most polite thing I've ever heard, I'm not going about informing you of your poor dressing skills am I?" She didn't rise to the bait and her eyes which had sparkled with her sarcasm looked deadly serious.

"Are you a wolf?" Her eyes studied me intently and I wondered to myself why I was divulging so much information when by every right _she_ should be answering _my_ questions, and I almost refused to answer on principle. But then something in her eyes caught me off guard, something almost desperate and just barely hopeful.

So I did something stupid and without any forethought did a half bow in the cold lake water.

"You found me out, I did it in the kitchen with the candlestick."She didn't laugh and she didn't so much as crack a smile, she came to the edge of the water and dropped to her knees and her voice shook when she spoke.

" I need your help."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: The Hunted

The mud made a squelching noise as her knees sank into it, and I decided this was a day to go down in the book of "weird shit that happens to me" for sure. The water however was starting to make even my body go numb and my body ran much hotter than a regular humans. I didn't imagine the impact on my anatomy was particularly impressive.

" How about you help me and I'll listen to why you think I can help you back?" She was instantly suspicious and she eyed me wearily like she was some sort of wooly baby lamb and I was…well…a wolf. The thought made me grin and I started walking out of the water. Her eyes flew wide and she scrambled in the damp dirt to get out of reaching distance.

" Be a dear and find me something without ruffles to hold this conversation in? I prefer to Banter with my hypothermia and pickles on the side thanks." She frowned but ran back behind her pinecones and rummaged around before tossing me a scratchy olive colored wool blanket that smelled of dirt and honeysuckle. I caught it before it touched the water and she stiffly turned her back and kept her spine ramrod straight as I came out of the water and wrapped the blanket snugly around my waist. I added a little swagger in my step as I walked over and plopped myself done on some pine needles to her left.

"Talk."

She took a deep breath and settled down next to me with a great deal more grace than I had mustered. It didn't escape my notice that though she was next to me, she was carefully out of grabbing distance. She almost seemed skittish and a little wild around the eyes like she would bolt at the slightest abrupt movement.

" My name is Chloe Lynsford and I'm from Dublin Ireland. I've been tracking for the last 7 months to try and find people that can help me and my pack. People like us. " Her hand trembled slightly as she shocked me and reached out to trace the outline of the tattoo on my arm. Her eyes closed and she sighed softly and my eyes riveted on her soft looking lips.

" Wolves. You're a wolf. You almost smell like home." She sniffed the air in a movement that seemed entirely out of place coming from a human and when she opened her eyes they were full of satisfaction and exhaustion.

" Do you have a pack? Are you Alpha?" The wolf in the back of my head growled _yes_, but the words I said were different. " No, Sam is Alpha and my pack is further West in the reservation La Push.

" I was beginning to think my family were the only ones left. " The fact that I had thought the same exact thing didn't seem as suave as I wanted to appear. Something about the way she worded it seemed odd though.

" yea, small world."

"My uncle sent me out to try and scout for any others like us, my pack is small and is depleted by the moment, he sent me out to welcome in any of our kind I could find, both to increase our number and happiness and most importantly our safety."

I couldn't help but chuckle softly and she glared at me as I leaned forward and braced my elbows on my knees. "What exists that could possibly harm you? There's nothing alive that I couldn't rip to shreds with limited effort, I can't imagine you're that much different."

She rolled her eyes and stared at me until the grin slid off my face. And the quiet of her voice was unsettling.

"Where I come from, we are the hunted, not the hunters." The statement seemed so ridiculous but her face was deadly serious.

"So, you're looking for protection? For warriors?" I grinned, liking that idea, sounded like maybe it could be the distraction I needed.

" More than that really." All of a sudden she seemed much more uncomfortable and she was studiously tracing a circle pattern in the dirt. Was she blushing? All of a sudden I was terribly intrigued.

" Go on."

" They want me to find, you know because there are so few of us and, well how else would you increase your numbers when you.-"

She was definitely blushing. " Out with it Chloe." She mumbled something that sounded like "mops." I shook my head in disbelief.

"You need a janitorial service then?"

" God, _Mates,_ they sent me to find potential _mates._ Geez what do you want me to do scream it from the rooftops that I'm somehow supposed to recruit warrior _virgins!?_

There was something mortifyingly similar to a giggle welling up in my chest and giggling was not in any way manly. I choked on my laughter and coughed for a few minutes as my eyes began to water and she shoved me in the chest, _hard. _

"Shut up, just shut the hell up, are you going to take me to La Push or not? I have to talk to an Alpha, someone who actually has power and makes decisions." She started angrily shoving things into a tattered army bag and looked at me impatiently.

"Well your gracious attitude isn't exactly _endearing _now is it? "

"Fine."

She started moving past me and I grabbed her arm as she passed.

" Chill out she-wolf I'll take you." The look on her face told me she didn't like the fact that I was touching her so I shifted my body closer just to annoy her. She tossed her obnoxiously pretty hair behind her annoying little face and looked me dead in the eye.

" You'll help me?"

I looked heavenward and called myself ten kinds of idiot but said what I was going to say anyways.

" I can't promise you suicide bombers and 72 virgins but yes, as far as I am capable, I will help you."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four: Shrieking banshees

As inconvenient as it was to hold up the scratchy wool blanket around my waist as we trudged through the woods towards La Push, I felt an odd intense dislike at the thought of the invasion of everyone else in my mind the moment I phased back. This was one of the moments when the lack of privacy chaffed more than others. I assumed she'd complain as we started the hike back, but she kept walking without comment and we ignored each other for a healthy amount of miles while we pretended we weren't studying each other in our peripheral vision.  
She was the first to break the silence as she shot me a sidelong glance and shifted her bag from her left to her right shoulder.

"Your pack lives on a reservation? How long ago was it abandoned?"

What kind of a question was that? She wasn't making any sense, and I responding with something much more intelligent sounding.

"Huh?"

She sighed and her impatience seemed to practically sizzle in the air between us.

"How long had the people on the reservation been gone when you made it your home? Did you scare them off?"

"Of course not, all the people that were living in the Reservation are still there."

She stopped walking and stared at me as if I was speaking some form of Klingon.

"People as in humans?"  
This chick was rapidly losing what limited faith I had had in her sanity from the start.

" Other than the zombie people lurking in the shadows, yes human people, what the hell other kind are there?"  
Her eyes got wide and she started panicking and all of a sudden I had a demented bad dresser having a panic attack in my forest before lunch time on a Saturday.

" What is wrong with you? What are you freaking out about?"  
"You live with the humans, as in every day interaction? Isn't that dangerous? For you? For them? Do they know what you are!"  
The fact that she sounded like she considered me to be an even worse monster than I thought I was wasn't winning her any brownie points in my book at the moment.  
"For the love of God, Don't you think that's a little self-righteous? We don't stop living just because our lives aren't as Suburban sitcom any longer. Our families know and the elders know and my pack would never hurt our people or are families. We are there to protect them, who the hell do you think you are insinuating any different?"

I had backed her up against a Spruce tree during my rant but she angled her chin defiantly and didn't back down which even as pissed off as I was I had to give her credit for. She slammed her finger into my chest and her eyes flashed with an emotion much darker than anger.  
" How can they know what you're capable of, when you don't even know what you're capable of? She shook her head impatiently and looked up at the dark clouds overhead obstructing the stars.  
" This Isn't going to work, this isn't safe for me."  
" Of course its sa-"  
" No its not I had no idea, that any of us would, that the humans would, and what am I supposed to do n-"  
"Stop talking"  
She carried right on with her crazy woman ranting.  
" If you would just listen to me."  
" Do you have any idea the kind of danger that puts so many-"  
"Would you just-"  
"And I thought that finally after all this-"

She was working herself into a nice loud fit, and she had cut me off one too many times for my limited temper to sustain and she kept on ranting about things that made no sense with her hands flapping around like a small bird. She was eroding away my last few nerves.

"Shut the hell up would you?"  
Nothing, not a dent in the psychos rant, off she flew on another tangent so I crowded her back against the spruce tree and did something to make her shut her trap. I kissed the crazed shrieking banshee into silence. The kiss was not soft or romantic but hard and rough and full of temper and she stiffened immediately at my touch which fueled the anger.

It was meant to be a punishment, a domination, until she softened beneath me with a little sigh and opened her mouth, and all of a sudden my thoughts were screaming insults at me," _Oh God, you idiot, stop what you're doing, drop her and run like hell." _But sadly for me I didn't have a brain to interpret the words anymore seeing as it was currently melting out of my ears. God she felt so good, so perfect and her body pressed up into mine and her lips were so soft. I forgot why I had kissed her to begin with and buried my hands in her hair and inhaled the same scent of honeysuckle from the blanket and –

The blanket, the blanket that was about as useless of a barrier as you could get and that was precariously tied around my waist and slipping sneakily down my torso. With an oath I broke the kiss and took a few healthy steps backwards for good measure, pretending our breathing wasn't loud and obvious in the silence of the woods. She stared at me with wide rabbit eyes and her hand moved to her lips without seeming thought, which drew my attention back to them. A growl more wolf than human slipped past my lips as the wolf inside of me decided that the man part of me was an imbecile and I took a menacing step forward. Her eyes grew impossibly wider in alarm and she took a deep breath to continue the argument and I charmingly grabbed her face with my hand and squeezed her cheeks til her lips puckered out like a fish.

" NO. MORE. TALKING."

She tried to argue with that but her argument lost some of its pizzazz coming from a goldfish. I interrupted her with an unholy glee.

"Let's not forget here that I am _helping_ you, now I told you I would take you to La Push and I am _taking_ you to La Push, and if you talk before we get there one more time, I will kiss you again." Her eyes were an intriguing mixture of alarm and dislike. So I let my voice sound smug and menacing as possible

"And next time Chloe, I won't be stopping, because you certainly didn't want me to."

The look she shot me told me exactly what she thought of my cocky statement and she shoved me away from her with a scowl. I turned my back on her and started walking in sweet silence, but I'm almost sure she stuck her tongue out at my back before trudging a good safe distance behind.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Or so help me…

The silence would have got to me if I hadn't been focused on my own issues for the majority of the walk. Like the fact that I had just noticed that I hadn't thought Of Bella once until now since I met Chloe and how much it disturbed me and relieved me at the same time. The boys would be frantic by now to know what had transpired. They knew I had found something but they had no idea what and Sam wasn't going to be very pleasant to converse with when he found out.

Chloe just made me so damn angry it sort of blocked out the rest of the world like a solar eclipse. But once my mind had found its way back to Bella it predictably stayed there and the silence took on a sullen edge until we reached the place where I had shucked my shorts and sneakers and I moodily put them back on as Chloe stood primly with her back turned a few feet away. When I came out from behind the bushes she looked at my face and quickly looked away chewing on her lower lip in a gesture of nerves I wondered if she was aware of. I could hear the crash of the surf in the distance before one of us finally spoke and her soft lilting voice startled me out of my thoughts.

"What are you thinking about?" And then without thinking I blurted out the worst most moronic thing I could have said. The truth.

"Bella." Her eyes flashed in shock and she looked away.

" And this Bella girl, she makes you angry?" Or are you always such pleasant company?"

" it really isn't any of your business." I snapped off entirely uncomfortable with the conversation.

" no." It really isn't." And she smiled an adorable lopsided smile for the first time since id met her. It made me weary and unreasonably angry all of a sudden for such an outrageously irritating female to have such an appealing stupid face with her stupid delicious looking mouth I almost wished for one irrational moment she was a boy so I could just punch her or something.

Yea, well…" I continued lamely letting the sentence hang in the air, and she looked at me with one auburn brow quirked up in questioning amusement. I was saved from another argument by loud crashing noises coming from a good 20 yards to our northeast. If I'd been human I would have assumed it was some large animal, which I guess wasn't that far off. Quil came tearing through the trees in front of us in wolf form sliding on the twigs and pine needles under his feet as he took both me and my new "friend" in at a glance.

I kept walking forward and smiled in greeting but Chloe stayed frozen where she was like some poor victim from that Mortal Combat ice ninja. Quil's muzzle lifted and he sniffed in the direction of Chloe and growled warningly low in his throat. The air crackled in the clearing and Chloe's eyes bled out into gold and her features froze in haughty superiority and quil whined, high and keening, and something outrageous happened.

Her voice slashed across my mind and from the wince on his face did the same to Quil, and it was authoritative, harsh and scathing. And without opening her mouth she snarled.

" Sit mutt,"

This in equal parts outraged and astounded the hell outta me. But not quite as much as the fact that I turned and looked at Quil incredulously. And he was sitting. Like a puppy. Like a goddamn lapdog on our own land, a dude who bench pressed Buicks just got mind-raped by a slip of a girl who wasn't even his alpha. But she sure as hell must _be someone's_ alpha.

If I wasn't so amazed it might have been funny, but I was leaning more towards disturbed by the second and tossed Quil the scratchy blanket and he phased back as Chloe's eyes lost all form of superiority and she looked at Quil like he was some sort of mutant (better him than me) and he, to give him credit, was looking at her in the same way. The silence stretched thin as they asked the same question at the same time.

" What are you?"

I dropped my forehead in my hand and groaned. This was going to be the longest day of my life. I wanted to get this woman to the reservation and out of my hair before the limited pieces of my brain were fried.

" No, not now, we're too close, let's just go. Quil, stop looking at her or ill dropkick your hairy ass. Now then, this is Chloe and that's all you need to know for right now, she's going to be nice, and you're going to be nice and were going to walk the rest of the way in a nice cheerful manner without any more confusing or freaky stuff going down or so help me ill drown both of you in the ocean you got me?"

They nodded but didn't take their eyes off of each other and I felt a moments dislike at the idea of what exactly she found so fascinating about him. After a while she stopped paying attention and she'd alternate between looking at the fog overhead and chewing her lip and then studying my back and then chewing her lip until she finally blurted out what she'd been thinking about.

"This guy, what's his name _Quil_, he is in your pack?" I was going to throw out a joke but her little face looked so very, very serious.

"Yes, Chloe, Quil is a member of my pack."

" Oh." She said and that was the last word uttered until we got to Sam's.

Everyone was still out searching when we made our grand entrance at Emily's, and Chloe took one look at Emily and instantly transformed into a docile kind and obedient creature while I suspiciously watched this weird turn of events. Emily, as is her way, accepted her on sight with a smile and they murmured to each other and went about doing varying domestic things while Quil and I watched her with dubious trust. She began to pepper Emily with questions, but she did it in such a charming and unobtrusive fashion I even caught myself smiling. Not that either of them noticed as they were studiously ignoring our presence.

" So the pack changed when vampires were in the vicinity?"

" How does that legend go again?"

"How many of you are there?"

The questions continued and I wondered how appreciative Sam would be that his lovely lady was giving out so much information when our side was still blind. Even though her voice was pitched low and sweet, with each answer her voice rang out with tiny threads of anxiety. Finally acknowledging my presence she looked at me and her eyes were old and imploring in her too innocent face. And she started shifting ever so subtly towards the door.

" Jacob, I think that I need to-" She was interrupted as the pack crowded loudly into the yard and Sam was there pushing my father in his chair. They could smell the intruder from outside without doubt and were cautious as they came in the door and chloe pressed herself flat against the wall as the boys filed in with my father and Sam bringing up the rear. As my father's chair cleared the doorway all the blood seeped out of Chloe's face and she stared at my dad as if he was an unwelcome and terrible ghost.

"Billy?" Her voice was horror-stricken and she swayed as if she'd faint and my father looked up at her with more shock on his face then I'd ever seen. In a moment no one Chloe made a strangled noise like a sob and bolted out the door and we stared after her stuck dumb by her departure. Emery finally asked what we'd all been thinking.

"What got into her? Why'd she run off like that?"

And my dad looked at his hands in his lap and sounded very tired when he responded.

"Because I know what she is."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: The Hippie Cult

My eyes found my fathers and he nodded towards the door and I left the room after her at a sprint. I was three steps out of the room when thunder crashed over head and the sky exploded in rain. I could still see her about a quarter mile down the beach and I wondered why she didn't just phase if she wanted to get away so bad and angrily started after her mumbling to myself.

"If this chick can control the weather too I'm going to be so pissed."

My legs ate up the distance between us quickly as I ranted about inconsiderate crazy women. The sky boiled black and the surf on the beach took on a menacing look as I caught up to her and grabbed her arm to spin her around. Her hair was plastered to her body and tears mingled with the raindrops on her face as she yanked her arm out of my grip with a vicious movement as if she'd been burnt.

"Don't fucking touch me!" I listened, not because of her mysterious alpha voice, but because the grief in her eyes was overwhelming and made me feel small and useless as the ocean seemed to mock us.

"Chloe, I'm trying to help-"

"Stop. Stop trying Jacob. There's not a goddamn thing you can do to help me. It's not something that can be helped." Her eyes were so old in her too-young face and her bravado crumpled and washed away with the tide. All of a sudden I felt so very young and naïve. She hugged herself and stared at the sky and her voice was hollow and empty when she spoke.

" I never asked to be a monster."

A harsh bark of cynical laughter escaped me as I stared at her incredulously.

"And you think I did? None of us asked for this, who would?!"

"You don't get it Jake, You and I, were not the same, and were not the same breed of monster. I make your pack look like a goddamn children's story. I've spent my entire life being hunted Jake, and I thought that maybe I'd finally be able to stop running, but I was kidding myself. It will never stop, I'm just changing the characters because your pack won't help me Jacob, they'll hunt me just like everyone else."

I shook my head in frustration and resisted the urge to shake her until her teeth rattled.

"I need you to give me some damn answers Chloe, Nothing makes sense to me. I don't know what you are or how you do the things you do. I'm running blind."

She stared at me as the heavens snarled in the distance and her face contorted into something close to hatred.

"Why Jake? So you can look at me the way that everyone else does? With fear and disgust? Let me go. It was a mistake to come here." She pivoted on her feet to walk away and I gave into the urge and finally grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her for emphasis.

"You're not going anywhere till I get some fucking answers Chloe. You think this is fun for me? You come here and disrupt my life and fill it up with weird shit when my weird shit meters already pretty goddamn full?! And you expect me to just let you trot back out of my life without so much as a by your leave. I don't think so Chloe, we can dance around this subject all night but one way or another im going to find out what I want to know. First off, what are you Chloe, and what is it you've done that is so awful?"

She looked away from the intensity of my expression and stared blindly behind me.

" I've done horrific things to innocent people Jacob, things sane and decent people cannot even imagine and every day I see their faces- women, children, fathers screaming in the middle of the carnage, begging."

Her eyes looked up and locked with mine but she wasn't on the beach in La Push and the horror she saw behind her eyes made me flinch from sheer vicinity. She seemed to visibly struggle though the layers of memory to rejoin me on the beach and the soft cadence of her voice was wilted when she finally answered my question.

"I'm a child of the moon Jacob."

I felt my brow furrow in confusion and irritation at finally getting an answer and not even understanding it.

"What is that? Some sort of hippie cult?"

The look on her face said that I had exceeded any and all expectations of idiocy which was fine, because she could join the damn club.

" I'm a werewolf Jake."

I stared at her as the black ate up the sky and waited for her explanation to make any sense. She searched my face and sighed shrugging out of my grip and awkwardly collapsing into a sitting position on the sand. She didn't seem to notice the rain or the storm or me for that matter, and I shifted from foot to foot in the uncomfortable silence and finally settled on the ground next to her.

"You're not a werewolf Jake, none of you are. You're a Shape shifter. Your form is only a wolf because of your ancestors. You're guardians, you're meant for something _Good,_ to protect the people you love. You phase whenever it is helpful and you keep your people safe. Werewolves are only wolves during the full moon, and there is nothing good or wholesome in us Jake. We are monsters with only slim grips on sanity, especially at first. It's almost like a blood-lust, the need to feed the beast a month's sustenance in three day intervals."

"When we first change, our kind is unstable too, my pack is just as capable of hurting others as yours is Chloe, didn't you see Emily? It only takes one moment to do something you can never take back. We all have regrets. "

She shook her head in denial as if I was a very small child.

"No Jake, it's not the same. You lose control and you _hurt_ people. We lose control and we _eat _people. It's a pretty big goddamn difference. "

I stared at the freckles on her small face and tried to see the picture she was painting but the pieces wouldn't fit together.

"How does my father know what you are Chloe? What are you too each other?" She jumped at the question and guilt and irony flashed across her features before she looked away.

"Your Billy Black's son?" she laughed a mirthless laugh that was self deprecating and jarring in the silence of the beach.

" Twenty years ago your father heard rumors of people like us, and went around the world trying to ferret out the truth. Weres don't change until adulthood on their 18th birthday, and when the full moon approaches we would take the young ones into the village in Silver Springs and leave them there in the care of allies to be safe from the disease and insanity that would play out in the following days. Your father is a very smart man and he had many long conversations with my mother. He was…he was kind to me. And he was staying in the village as a favor to my mother, to keep an extra eye on the young ones because there had been rumors the Volturi had been sighted in a neighboring town. "

My mind rolled around the word _Volturi_, something that sounded vaguely familiar to me until I placed it as the leeches that had failed in the common courtesy to rid the world of Edward Cullen. "The closest thing to vampire law," Bella had said.

"The Volturi have hunted our kind for as long as any of us can remember, no logic, no compromises, no mercy. So the pack was very careful when mention of them came up. We stayed away from the village when it got close to the full moon. None of us trusted ourselves, and even though we got more control with time we are always one step away from insanity, and none of us wanted to take a human life. "

She was silent for a long moment and her voice changed into something hard and grief-stricken, sharp and painful to listen to with brittle edges that dug into my chest.

"The Volturi were closer than we thought, and while we were away…they took something of mine, something important, to get me to come back to the village. See, they'd brought an audience with them, because people were questioning the slaughter, and they intended to provoke us into making them the good guys. And I guess they did."

Her tiny frame shuddered and I felt an intense urge to comfort, feeling that something so much more horrific was not being said, barely suppressing the urge to wince at the pain radiating from her cold form at my side. And she continued on in her awful dead voice slowly edging ever so closely towards hysteria.

" So I came, and I did what they told me, anything they told me to get it back, to make sure it got out intact." Her voice cracked and she finally locked eyes with me and she looked like a small broken child told there was no God.

"And they broke it. I did what they told me to and they broke it anyways. And I couldn't- my mind it just- I shut off." She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them hugging them to herself.

"And I killed them. I killed everyone. I killed the Volturi, I killed their followers and the villagers, their wives, their children. 'Stop', they'd scream. 'Please don't hurt them', the woman would plead as they hid their children behind their back. Just like I had screamed, just like the words I had said. 'Please' they begged as I painted the town in carnage and I didn't stop. I ripped the village apart brick by brick and painted the roads in blood all the while they screamed for mercy and I ripped them apart."

" Your father saw what I did to those people, to that town. I see every single one of their faces and am reminded of the horrific sins I've committed every night. Your father got to share my nightmare and neither he nor his people or his God will save me, because redemption died in Silver Springs."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7- Benjamin

I tried to wrap my head around the type of thing that could have sparked such an atrocity, an event that could drive the small shuddering woman in the sand next to me to such horrific actions and put the nightmares in her eyes and the shadows underneath them. She stared out into the crash of the surf as the silence stretched uncomfortably taut. And nothing in me was strong enough to _not _ask the question burning on my tongue.

"What did they take Chloe? What did the Volturi break?"

Her small frame seemed to collapse inward upon itself. And her voice was ragged and full of grief when she whispered.

" Benjamin. They broke Benjamin." Reeling from the short sentence I looked at her face and willed her to look at me.

" Who was Benjamin, Chloe?" She finally complied and her eyes were haunted as tears snaked through the dust on her cheeks.

" He was my son."

The last bits of her dignity seemed to break under the weight of the confession and she leaned into my arms and spoke in a voice thick with tears.

"I was 18 when Charles found our pack, he was the first nomad I'd ever met and when he looked at me the whole world would go away, and for one small moment as long as he was there everything was perfect." She laughed a small self-deprecating chuckle that ended too close for comfort to a sob.

" Does that make any sense?"

A picture of Bella flashed behind my eyelids and my voice was gruff with emotion as I finally gave in and wrapped my arms around her shaking shoulders and drew her into my side.

"Perfect, it makes perfect sense."

"None of it was planned, none of it was intended, but I can't take it back and I never would, because Charles gave me my Benjamin. And I had him, if only for 4 years I _had_ him." She laughed an ugly laugh that jolted me from surprise and her lips twisted into a bitter grimace.

" My niece cadence used to talk about the Volturi like they were fairytales. The invisible monsters under the bed. She'd tell Benjamin that if he didn't behave, or listen or be a good boy that the volturi would come and take him away. We let her tease him because it was never too early to teach the young ones to be wary. But he didn't understand, he was still a baby and had as close to a normal human life as could be expected waiting for him for the next 14 years."

" When I found out they had him I was frantic, nothing mattered but that I get him back, not the pack, not my safety not my family or friends or the lives of hundreds, when I got there they-"

Her voice caught and her fingertips turned white as they bit into her legs

" They had him hanging above the ground by ropes at his wrists. And he was screaming. He was screaming for me. They told me to shift in front of the villagers as I begged for them not to hurt him. I did what they told me to do, the villagers screamed, some fainted, and others demanded my death.

And the blood-suckers turned to the crowd and smiled and told them that this boy-child they had with them was my offspring, of the death and terror that followed wherever we went and the villagers started screaming things.

'Kill it!' ' It's a monster!'

And I dropped to my knees and begged.

' No, please, please he's just a baby, please don't hurt him.'

And there was no mercy in their eyes. There was hate and fear and no salvation. The Volturi wanted me to take them to my pack, so that they could rid the area of the 'diseased monsters.' They were going to kill my mother and my sister and Charles and everyone and I told them I would take them, anything, anything at all if they would just let Benjamin go.

He started thrashing in the ropes and I tried to calm him down, lied to him as I told him it would all be okay.

'It's okay Benjamin; you need to go with the Volturi for now okay, I'll be right here.'

His little eyes widened in fright when he heard the word Volturi and he started screaming,

"No mommy! No mommy I'm good! I'll listen, mommy I promise!"

She turned her head into my shoulder as the wind whipped a little boy's voice through the beach.

" They got irritated with him and grabbed him and shook. I heard his bones crack and his screams stop as they dumped his crumpled, broken body in the mud and I still hear him crying ' no mommy I'm good.' Twenty years later.

I massacred Silver springs til their blood ran like Benjamin's, til they plead for their children and watched as I condemned them. I was the monster they wanted me to be and I laughed as Ibroke them."

She started sobbing uncontrollably into my shirt and my insides clenched at the urge to protect her, to make it all go away. It was humbling and helpless and so I cradled her in my arms and rocked her on the beach and murmured words that are meant to soothe but are never quite enough. And I made a promise as my heart ached for her.

" You and I Chloe, we're not so different, and I gave you my word I'd help you, this changes nothing, I will make this be okay ." I tilted her face up and wiped tears off her pale cheek.

" Besides, you look really awful when you cry." I smiled lopsidedly at her watery chuckle and the sun came up as we pretended for just a moment we were the people we wanted to be and mourned a little boy named Benjamin.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8- Your mom

We sat for hours as invisible hands finger-painted the sky in bright hues of orange and pink. The silence for once wasn't strained or uncomfortable, it just _was_. She seemed too exhausted to care about being vulnerable anymore and rested her head on my shoulder as we watched God's sensory play. Mentioning that my butt had fallen asleep long ago seemed ungracious somehow. But my right side was slowly drifting into numbness making me feel like a stroke victim.

I was saved however, from ruining the moment because someone else did it for me. Chloe and I noticed in a dazed sort of fashion that Sam was heading towards us with an unhappy look on his face, Unhappy being the understatement of the year. He looked pissed and dangerous and Chloe stiffened behind me as we got to our feet. Little sprays of sand exploded at Sam's feet as he stormed up the beach and Chloe took a step in front of me and went toe to toe with him. They looked ridiculous as Sam had a good six inches on her in both height and width.

"Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can mess with the minds of MY pack, make them submit to you when they are under my command? Is that why your here? I know what you are, you think that just because you're an alpha you can control members of my pack or take power without a fight?!

I had never seen Sam so full of rage before and it actually took me a minute to realize he was referring to what she had done to Quil in the woods. Her voice was apologetic and conciliatory when she spoke.

"I'm sorry for trespassing , I understand why you would think that, but I didn't know Quil was one of your kind when I saw him, I thought he was just a regular large wolf."

Sam looked skeptical which I understood as what she had said made no sense, just like every other word she'd uttered since she had got here. I put a hand up to interrupt.

" Wait a minute, are you telling me you talk to woodland creatures? Who the hell are you? Snow white?" She tossed me an irritated glance but kept her eyes on Sam.

"Our genetics are even more similar to an average wolves' than yours. Alphas or descendants of alphas can communicate telepathically with them to avoid unpleasantness and insure safety. I'm guessing from the looks on your faces that Mother Nature finally gave us a point in our favor?"

Sam shook his head as if he was trying to wrap his head around her response, I could sympathize with the poor bastard, she had that affect on a guy. But Sam was looking at her as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.

" You stay out of the minds of my pack, you're a liability this close to the full moon. You don't belong here." I could practically hear her spine snap straight as her eyes grew cold and she stared him down.

" If you were a true Alpha I wouldn't have been able to get in his mind. If you were the alpha your pack deserved he wouldn't have listened."

My eyes ping-ponged back between them and Sam's body radiated outrage as the breeze itself seemed to say "uh oh". His voice was stilted in wounded ego.

"I do what must be done when others will not."

I had wondered how long the conversation would last before their eyes turned on me.

"You're the true alpha for this pack Jacob; you cannot tell me you don't know that." This subject was not high on my favorite things to talk about I shrugged off her question.

"How would you even know?"

"Like recognizes like."

Then something clicked on, the bit of this conversation that has seemed even more outrageous then the others.

"Wait, you can't be an alpha, you're a girl."

She looked at me as if I'd just told her to go make me a sammich. Sam looked amused and the outrage seemed to osmosis itself from him to her in a millisecond.

"So now you're tactless _AND_ sexist?" I looked to Sam to get me out of the ditch I'd dug but he shot me a "not on your life" look. I revoked my former sympathy and camaraderie.

"Leadership is passed down through blood, be it a male or female. My mother is alpha right now, but she is very sick and has been for a long time. I am the next in line, and unlike you I understand and appreciate the responsibility and importance of taking up that role, for my family and for my people. I won't be the one to turn my back on them and make them weaker than they are."

The fact that Sam had more or less already had this discussion with me only helped to make it more irritating and Sam's silent 'I told you so' wasn't any less obnoxious than a verbal one. So I chose the mature route and got very close to her face.

" Go to hell."

I started walking back towards Emily's, if they wanted to beat each other to a pulp I wasn't going to stop them, I wasn't feeling particularly charitable to either one at the moment.

" Didn't anyone ever tell you to respect your elders?"

Her mocking voice grated on my nerves as I turned around, silently replaying her earlier story, when had she met my dad? What had she said? Twenty years ago? She sure as hell didn't look a day over 18.

"How old are you?"

" Not a chance."

Something gleeful erupted in my head and a wicked smile played around my lips. Her mocking self assurance visibly wobbled a bit at the edges and she realized too late she may have made a mistake.

" So if the wolves in your pack are cougars, tell me, is your mom single?"

She groaned and Sam snickered and we began the walk back towards the house.

" Are we really going to have to bring our mother's into this?" She rolled her eyes as if she hadn't thought my maturity could have dissipated so much, so I obliged her further and let maturity fly out the window.

" Hey, you leave my mother out of this, and I'll leave this outta your mother."


End file.
